Barely Found

With the increase of online sales, physical store locations are disappearing. Ottumwa is a town that has experienced this and has seen closure of K-Mart, Target, Younkers, and more over the last decade. The most recent is a clothing retailer called Herberger's that had their final day open today.

Over a month ago, this retailer was having sales on everything in the store, including the shopping carts. My parents thought this could be handy for bringing groceries in the house, so they purchased one. However, they couldn't take it home until closer to closing date. The selected cart was labeled and we waited until the appropriate time.

That day was this past Wednesday. We took an evening ride to retrieve our cart and enjoy the late summer weather. Upon entering Herberger's, we were greeted with vary merchandise remaining and well used empty shelves and display racks with price tags to purchase. The hunt for our own half-size cart began with going all around the empty store. Dad checked every possible candidate, even discreetly looking at carts the few customers were using.

After nearly 30 minutes, and recruiting a cashier, our target was found stuck between empty shelves filled with display hooks. Dad and the cashier started removing the contents while I sat nearby. My parking spot was in a number of complete and partial mannequins, all stark white and naked.

A child sized figure was propped up to my left about my eye line facing me. I no longer had any curiosity on if mannequins were modeled to a particular gender as all was plain to see. In front of me were adult sized props, but only the bottom half. The back of all them were facing me while our prize was retrieved. While the front is generic, the rear is anatomically correct.

I sat for about five minutes getting mooned and flashed with a multitude of thoughts running through my head. Most ideas went around prank possibilities at camp or unique ways to hang my clothes. However, the price on the smaller figure was much more than I wanted to spend for entertainment.

Living the quad life, I never quite know where I may find myself during a day. I'm hoping this week won't include getting mooned, but I guess the possibility exists.